


A Summer's Day

by inarikins



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: C1E95, F/M, M/M, Multi, Vax with beads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 09:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15434292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inarikins/pseuds/inarikins
Summary: A quiet day in Zephrah.





	A Summer's Day

**Author's Note:**

> For @sketchingsprw, and because I've been kind of wanting and excuse to write something like this. 
> 
> Unbeta'd. Unproofread. Possibly dubious tenses ahead.

Gilmore isn’t usually a man of simple pleasures. He likes his vices, what ones he does have. He likes expensive brandy and fine jewelry and magnificently enchanted items and weaponry. 

But all of that pales in comparison to this: Vax lying with his head in his lap, outside in the thick, well-tended grass of a public area of Zephrah. Keyleth is off knowing gods knew what, but it was something important, and he and Vax are left to fend for themselves.

It’s a beautiful day, and Vax’s eyes are closed. Shaun’s playing with his hair, stroking his fingers through the fine easily tangled black strands. He’s careful not to tangle or pull, and if Vax isn’t sleeping, he’s at least fully relaxed. 

Shaun drapes one hand over the side of Vax’s neck and face, strokes the soft skin, runs his thumb over the scar that runs along his jawline, and his other hand finds its way to a strand of beads. 

They’re old, most of them. They’re mostly wooden, painted bright colors, some of which has faded or worn off. It’s quite incongruous for a rogue, who relies on shadow and darkness, but it’s also so entirely Vax. Shaun’s never seen Vax without them, and these days there’s new ones as well. 

Glass beads, more finely made, shells with holes drilled through and strung along with them, bits of coral, of fine pumice stone, and tiny, delicate twists of wood that must have been made by a druid, they were much too fine to be made by the knife of a woodcarver. 

There were even bits of bone and round pieces of metal - one of which looked very much like the round shot Percival used in his firearms. 

It was a motley collection, from the plain beads, the oldest, to the newer additions, the strange and collected over Vox Machina’s travels. 

He slides the beads up and down Vax’s hair, counting them off, playing with them, enjoying the variety of textures. 

“Do you like my beads?” Vax asks, blinking open his eyes to look up at him, his eyelashes dark and long enough that he almost didn’t need the kohl he wore around his eyes anyways. 

“I love them,” Shaun replies, quietly. He reaches up to his own goatee, meticulously cared for, combed and oiled and groomed, and scratches his chin thoughtfully. “You didn’t used to have this many.” He still remembers the day Vox Machina strode into his store and knew they were destined for greatness. He remembers the day he laid eyes on Vax and knew, in his heart of hearts, that they were meant to be. 

He moves his hand from his beard to his hair, finds the small braid behind his ear, the two golden beads there strung together. Slowly, he works one free. 

It’s Markeesian, with the most delicate of filigrees. When he’d left Marquet to come here, he had sold almost everything he had, every magical item he’d found or made, but these beads he’d kept. A matched pair. 

“Here,” he says, and offers out the bead. Vax takes it, turns it between his fingers, inspects it. “It’s kind of like the necklaces Pike gave you all. If you touch it and hold it, the other one warms up.” He puts his fingers to his own golden bead and it’s already warm to the touch. As he holds it, the warmth pulses and fades like a heartbeat, and Vax smiles. 

“I’ve been waiting for the right person to give it to.” 

“Thank you, Shaun,” Vax says, and he sits up and turns in the same motion. They’re so close, and Vax leans in closer, faces only an inch apart. 

It’s Shaun who closes the distance, presses their lips together, his fingers still around the bead in his hair, and he’s never been happier.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @notsoshem


End file.
